Sunday, August 8, 2010

[Alt: I'm not listening to you. I mean, what does a SQUIRREL know about mental health?]

I'm going to have have to side with xkcdexplained on this one, their policy of drawing dicks on people aside: This comic completely reeks of someone who just saw Inception, and has been contemplating its dream-within-a-dream themes. If Inception wasn't totally taking the internet by storm these days I'd have a little less sympathy for that complaint, but I've read the sentence "I heard you like dreams so I put a dream in your dream so you can sleep while you sleep" or some variant so frequently that the notion of hallucinating a hallucination is utterly boring to me.

Of course, there's also the problem of the fact that the logic in the comic doesn't make sense: How is it "sane" to have a hallucination so extreme that it generates its own meta-hallucination? That's not sane at all. What's sane is not hallucinating.

Anyway, then you find out that no, he is not sane, he is hallucinating for some reason and there is a talking squirrel. The joke is: He thinks he might be crazy, but he might not be, and then it turns out he is crazy. Ha!

Perhaps I've mentioned before that bad exposition - in anything - really bothers me. This happens all the time in movies and TV shows, and it generally bugs me when it's so noticeable. So, needless to say, the first panel of this comic is about as bad as you can get on that point. "The sleep deprivation madness worsens," with 3 little bubbles of some kind above his head (the bubbles represent the fact that he is tired, apparently). Generally we might want to know why this fellow is sleep deprived; the reason might even be funny. But we don't get that, we get: He is tired - accept it. I think it's the word "worsens" that is bothering me - it makes me feel like there is a backstory that we don't know. And it's unnecessary! If he had said "God, I haven't slept forever. I'm so tired." Not great, but at least it's not implying that this is Part II to a sleep deprived adventure.

142 comments:

One shouldn't capitalize on Inception. The only reason the movie is doing well is because of the little "THE END...?" twist at the end makes pseudo-intellectual hipsters talk about its implications... and its only competition was that fucking Airbender abomination.

no inception is doing well because it is imaginative for the most part (even though nolan traded in mindfucks for explosions at the climax) and deals with some pretty compelling themes in an interesting way

Inception isn't a movie that appeals to hipsters. Hipsters generally avoid blockbusters (in my experience, especially the pseudo-intellectual ones), and stick to the indie and art house films that actually produce films which are genuinely weird and confusing.

Inception is a movie that appeals to people who think that the Matrix is a mindfuck, or that the idea of a "dream within a dream" is somehow unique. It's Mindfucks For Dummies entertainment--the sort of thing that a person can watch and feel as if they are intelligent and sophisticated for enjoying it. After your garden variety American consumer watches it, they can have a fake intellectual discussion about it, and then promptly forget about it as a movie. They may get it or rent it when it comes out on DVD, but it feels unlikely.

Hipsters don't enjoy that sort of movie. They instead enjoy writing irascible, dismissive rants about how excited everyone gets over a concept that has already been explored by much more interesting directors with much more compelling art styles.

Also "The Other Guys" came out. Haha, Mark Wahlberg makes me laugh. The other guy not so much, except for that one time he said "Gater needs his gun, punk-bitch!" exactly correct.

Oh, I enjoyed Inception -- it was well-made. I don't understand why people think it was a "mind-fuck"... after the first 15 minutes they explain everything for you so you don't get lost. Explain succinctly*, too, to avoid as Carl is preaching "bad exposition".

I bet those same people who contemplate the value of either possible ending think that the kid in The Giver finds what he's looking for at the end of the book, as opposed to dying and hallucinating it.

I didn't see Airbender, should I not? I also am only vaguely curious in that new elevator-shaft-five-people-zomg M. Night movie coming out.

The only time it managed to pull a mindfuck in the entire movie was in the beginning when you had no idea about how the dreams worked and so all you knew was that really cool special effects were happening.

Also, what themes does it have? You mean how it introduces plot elements that don't go anywhere? Or how it relies on plot points that don't make any goddamn sense based on what's already established in the movie? Or how the main protagonist is a completely unrelatable douche-bag that we're expected to feel sorry for and gets everything he ever wanted in the ending? Or are we supposed to explore 'the nature of reality and happiness' because the top doesn't fall at the end because you're a sucker for pretentious bullshit? I'm not jaded, your standards are just too goddamn low.

I liked Inception. But enough about that. It looks like Randy went out and decided that he needed to beautify himself by cleaning his pores and then thought it would be hiiiiiiilarious to do a strip about it.

As far as I'm concerned you don't need to take anything away from Inception outside of the fact that watching someone fight in zero gravity because in the reality the person is dreaming in they are in a state of free fall creating an environment of zero gravity in their dreams, and someone folding a fucking city block in their dream and then them walking on it as if normal is FUCKING AWESOME.

Forget story, that right there is all you need to know to know that Inception is an awesome film and if you can't respect the awesomeness of that, then you should go back to watching the news

-Randy decided to clean his ugly ass up because he's lonely and desperate.-Realized those pore strips hurt.-Probably thought "It felt like it was going to rip my skull out! OH MAN I BET NO ONE HAS THOUGHT THAT BEFORE."-Or, alternatively, "I bet everyone has thought that before. I better draw a comic about it to get more GOOMHR. My stock is low and it's making it hard to jack off to myself in the mirror.

that wasn't rage. I've been trolling fundies of all sorts since I was like 17 and have honed it to an art form. the atheist ones are more fun to troll these days (but that is a discussion for another time).

when I am not just attacking the very idea of a movie I write actual critiques of it. Inception bothers me on a conceptual level, mostly because of the reaction it's getting. I'm sure it's possible to enjoy it legitimately, but the hype rings hollow.

in this particular case I'm not really taking the sidelines, but yes, I generally think that both sides are being idiots.

Carl, is it okay to thank you for mostly remaining above such cheap and immature jokes as the dick jokes that xkcdexplained has recently stooped to?

Latest comic: The second half of the alt-text was reminiscent of some of the genuine GOOMH comics back when xkcd was good. Everything else about the comic is boring, except for the art which just looks weird. Why does a stick figure need pore strips? It can't possibly have pores, seeing as how it has no face.

Seriously, what is with xkcdexplained and the drawn-on dicks? I want to believe it's meant as some meta commentary on how lazily-done art is easily modified, but suspect it's just a juvenile version of what they used to accomplish via wit.

@8:35: uh, except I'm talking about hipsters as in the contemporary subculture. it is pretty much defined by being anti-mainstream. unfortunately, like many things the subculture is into, hipster backlash (originally a phenomenon more or less exclusive to the subculture) has gone mainstream, and people such as yourself adopt it without actually understanding any of the elements of the subculture.

these days the subculture is more characterized by irony and smug sarcasm (often called "snark," another word ruined by mainstream writers writing about something they don't understand), but the core of anti-mainstream has always remained. while it's possible to argue that many elements of the subculture have gone mainstream, the common stereotype of the hipster is that as soon as the mainstream likes something they're into, they drop it like a bad habit, as indicated by the common phrase, "I liked it before it was cool."

there is really nothing more mainstream than a blockbuster movie, and hipsters really don't make up enough of the population to propel a movie to blockbuster status. nor are they internally coherent enough even if they were. as a subculture that cares deeply about their tastes in movies, music, and literature, the hipster's list of likes and dislikes is highly personal, if frequently affected. if a band or movie ever became too obvious of a choice (with the possible exception of a few of the great classics), its mainstream qualities would drive many away, cause still others to only enjoy it in secret or (claim to) enjoy it ironically, and leave those who remained publicly liking it prefacing it with self-depreciating comments like "I know it's trashy, but..." etc.

but yeah, I'm sure your understanding of the subculture I've been following since before the word "hipster" went mainstream is a lot better than mine. that must be why you're using it to mean the exact opposite of what it actually does.

@Anonymous 8:35I wasn't crazy about Inception, but you're just being an ass. You're really accusing the main character of getting everything he wants? The only thing he got was he finally got to move back in with his kids. His wife's still dead and many people probably believe he killed her. Plus the whole thing was obviously a dream since the perpetually spinning top is physically impossible so there's also the fact that his life isn't even real.

We're not expecting this movie to be the greatest thing since [insert favorite movie here]. But it was damned good for a mainstream movie.

It's more like a stylish method of delivering massive explosions and gunfights in as many varied environs as can be expected.I liked the way they managed to keep up the suspense at the climax, it's rare that happens with me.

Also, I burst out laughing @ cob's OH JESUS CHRIST when his _______ ______s off the ________.

He sounded like he just stood in a bee's nest.

Anyway- thanks to youtube, I saw a video of performance art where this girl opened a can of spagetti-os, smeared the on her shirt, used scissors to cut open the crotch of her jeans, do a little pee on the floor and insert spagetti-os up her vagina.

By the way did you guys know that the beautiful and intelligent Michelle Phan just recently released a YouTube tutorial for homemade pore strips? It's sad to think that a person as educated and sophisticated as Randall jacks off to the same pathetic little things that I do.

the strip would be fixed to the skin, which the stick figure seems have in the last panel, not the bone underneath. so what would be ripped of with the strip is the skin layer above the skull, not the skull itself.

Hey Rob, you seem like a well versed fellow. I notice that you appreciate Vonnegut (good man.) You talk as if you have seen Inception. I would ask you this, have you read any books by Philip K Dick? Hes like my favourite author....man. Left me underwhelmed as a film.

Also for a film about dreams that is immeasurably better watch Waking Life. The film is mainly interesting people talking about interesting things with not much semblance of plot.

I agree that this comic is crap, but your complaint about the implication of a backstory is completely unfounded. It is a writing term that has been around since the Ancient greeks-- "in medias res" (which, incidentally is actually a ROMAN term for "in the middle of things"). Stories have been beginning in the middle of things for thousands of years. Get used to it.

777 is horrifying, if only because of the implication that the person in the script had a working jaw and eyes are implied as well, by the eye sockets of the skull.

This means that instead of Randall being a poor artist, he has created a universe where everybody has eyes and a mouth, but are unable to use them because of the massive layer of pure white skin covering their entire heads.

This was clearly suicide and an attempt to share the knowledge of how horrible existence truly is on the part of the person in the script. Somehow he discovered the truth and he hopes that when the medical examiners poke at his remains with their handless arms, that they too will come to understand what is really going on and spread the message, since the main character was far too depressed to do it.

Yknow what? Today's comic? Pretty damn funny. Original enough that I couldn't think of where he might've stolen the idea from, a self-contained storyline, no extraneous words butting in to try to tell us what we've been shown. Yeah yeah blah blah skulls don't work that way what-the-fuck-ever. Any xkcd that lets me shut my brain off and enjoy an amusing image is better than one that's all up its own ass with how smart it is in my book.

Yep, halfway decent comic for a change. Too bad he still felt the need to royally fuck it up with three goddamn lines of buttfucker alt-text.

I was actually hesitating to move my cursor over the comic. I really, truly wanted to just leave well enough alone, let the comic itself stand as an example that it could occasionally rise to a higher level of mediocrity. But I had to see. I had to know if what was clearly felt to be an essential part of the comic was as good as the comic itself on this strange day. Hell, it could've fit in if it used an equal dose of brevity.

I didn't even read it. I just saw that it was a huge splerge of text and my illusion was shattered. Randall is like a teenager arguing with a high school science teacher who simply does not know when to shut up. Unbelievable.

Jon, the problem isn't that he's starting in the middle of things- it's just that he's doing it an a really shitty way.

For one- the line "the sleep deprivation madness worsens" should have been aborted and burned with the rest of the medical waste.

also, he makes it as if what lead to this was VASTLY more interesting and intriguing than the shitty joke he gave us- which is like going to a star resteraunt and being served steaming shit on a plate. (well not quite, xkcd isn't a star resteraunt; zing.)

of course, the reason for sleep deprivation is probably that he wants to associate himself with the kewl nerds who stay up late.

So yeah, people have been using "in media res" for thousands of years, so when you fuck up as badly as this when using it you really have no excuse- there's generations of writers to learn from.

I think it's best not to overanalyze this new one. I'm not a cuddlefish, but Randall clearly didn't think it through very much when drawing it, and I don't think the strip requires logical thinking. I mean it is a dude ripping out his own skull.

It's not the most clever joke (for instance, it reminded me a lot of an early Calvin & Hobbes comic where Calvin blows a huge bubble that explodes all over his face, making him think his head is now inside-out. That one was better). But let's at least attack the humor instead of the logic.

Today's comic bothered me a little because for a moment I couldn't interpret the last frame. I thought he was pulling his skin off, which, if you've ever used a pore strip, is a risk if you simply yank it off all at once. Not that you would lose all the skin on your face, but a thin layer of outter skin on your nose, making you somewhat worse off than when you had the blackheads.

But yanking your skull out? That makes no goddamn sense. If someone even had the strength to pull a nose off, then the nose would separate from the skull; it wouldn't pull the skull out with it.

Contrary to the remarks of numerous pseudo-intellectuals, Inception is not particularly hard to follow. People were talking about layers of dreaming as if it were some kind of unprecedented mind-fuck that they didn't even figure out until they got back from the theater.

Hurr durpadeedurr keeping track of how deep each dream was is fucken hard man like, i had to count to 4, or something, maybe i had to count to 5? man, the point is, i haven't counted past 2 in decades.

Is it just me, am I imagining this, or DID HE DO THIS EXACT COMIC ALREADY. I may be imagining it. But Im pretty sure Im not. So... yeah. If I am imaging it, its because my sleep deprivation has worsened.

So not having seen Inception, it's basically ripping off 13th Floor/ExistenZ, is that right?

Both of those movies were derided as ripping off The Matrix, which is somewhat fair as they all came out around the same time, and they all explored the idea of "what if reality wasn't really real". But The Matrix was just like, OK, normal reality isn't real; here's real reality, now its time for cool ass bullet time gun battles. Whereas 13th Floor/eXistenZ had multiple layers of that wasn't real, now are we actually in reality mindfuck.

since i don't really know anything about movies, i don't actually know which directors are actual brilliant visionaries capable of deftly handling subtle themes and swiftly introducing complex elements of a world and etc. etc. etc. etc.

so i'm entirely prepared to believe that inception is just a big-budget spectacle film that's a little less hyperkinetic than its contemporaries and a little more "whoa high concept", but i don't actually know what obviously superior films it pales in comparison to

Granted I haven't seen Inception (and thus didn't read any comments because I don't want spoilers).

I have to say, the logic about hallucinating a hallucination making him sane is totally flawed, but isn't that kind of the point? He's sleep deprived and thus not thinking clearly. It doesn't make sense that he'd have logical musings. I've heard sleep deprived students say things very similar to this.

As for the poor exposition, meh, didn't really bother me. I sort of assumed perhaps this was a continuation of the Haiku prime number proof comic. XKCD isn't exactly known for good character continuity (and perhaps this comic would have benefited from some) but I'm kind of okay with it here.

I think the last line from the squirrel makes up for it. I was very amused by it.

I don't think the logic was "he's crazy, no he's not, yes he is haha!"

I think it was more along the lines of some sleep deprived person rambling in their head and exaggerating how crazy they are. Then their ramblings are stopped when an actual hallucination exists and you find out they really are crazy.

That definitely has more potential for humor. Which at least for me was acheived.

Did someone say "discussing things only tangentially related to xkcd because Randall Munroe is apparently no longer capable of creating a comic interesting enough to generate discussion, good or bad"? Cause that's what that sounded like.

Anyway, comparing Inception to The Matrix makes a lot of sense: action movies with excellent cinematography and interesting core conceits that nevertheless succeed only as entertainment due to, among other things, plots which don't make any fucking sense. This is a much worse flaw in Inception, which is, among other things, a heist movie, which means that everything needs to fit together like clockwork. And nothing does. Just off the top of my head, I can think of four major problems with the way the dreamworld works. And that's bad.

Also the last five seconds of the movie was the worst example of puerile Shyamalaning I've seen in a long time.

Could be Munroe wanted to to an Inception comic really badly but didn't want to give the overt impression that he is into something so mainstream at the moment. Or maybe he couldn't come up with any clever spin on the movie's premise. Not that lack of a clever idea has ever stopped him from doing a comic ... and not that he needs to do anything even remotely coherent to have fanboys going all GOOMHR in unison.

He's usually anywhere between 5 and 60 years behind on current topics, so maybe he'll finally have a (not so) clever twist (or more likely, "Something that always bugged me..." -- way to tell not show Randall) on Inception cooked up for us by 2015.

To everyone criticizing the logic of pore strips pulling out your skull as opposed to ripping off your skin... Read the first panel again. "Deep cleaning". With that point emphasized, what would be the humorous sense in pore strips simply ripping your skin off?

The joke is: "Imagine if pore strips were so DEEP-cleaning that they actually pulled your skull out when removed, even though that doesn't make sense."

...oh and did you know you can make ANY joke entirely unfunny by explaining it in a simplistic manner? Neat huh.

"Hey Rob, you seem like a well versed fellow. I notice that you appreciate Vonnegut (good man.) You talk as if you have seen Inception. I would ask you this, have you read any books by Philip K Dick? Hes like my favourite author....man. Left me underwhelmed as a film.

Also for a film about dreams that is immeasurably better watch Waking Life. The film is mainly interesting people talking about interesting things with not much semblance of plot. "

I haven't read a lot of Philip K Dick, but I saw A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life. the former felt too much like the latter except not as interesting. I love Waking Life though. it really takes the idea and just runs with it, artistically and otherwise.

I will definitely need to read more Philip K Dick, I just haven't got round to it.

"Well, I was assuming that you understood what those words meant. Clearly, you don't, which is fair enough. "

I guess it would help if it weren't something that I've had literally years of experience with, and you weren't drawing false dichotomies between intuitive and experiential learning, or between intuition and knowledge. (especially since, in this case, "intuition" is not as in "women's intuition" where it implies a strong hunch, but refers to "a keen and quick insight" or "immediate apprehension", an obvious contrast with the previous idea that I learned this information by thinking about it a great deal instead of merely experiencing it and grasping it immediately.)

I am honestly surprised he didn't use "Alas pore Yorick" as the alt-text.It doesn't bastardise Shakespeare, it's short, it's a pun. It's not very amusing but it's a reference to something I know about so durr hurr hurr and it isn't the crap he actually put down.

""a keen and quick insight" or "immediate apprehension", an obvious contrast with the previous idea that I learned this information by thinking about it a great deal instead of merely experiencing it and grasping it immediately"

It seems like you've not learned anything at all. You can't have it both ways. Either it's a quick insight, in which case it's intuition, or it's experience-based knowledge, in which case it took some time.

Lordy. Just admit you made a mistake and move on. You're allowed make mistakes, Rob. Or do you think you're above that sort of thing?

"It seems like you've not learned anything at all. You can't have it both ways. Either it's a quick insight, in which case it's intuition, or it's experience-based knowledge, in which case it took some time.

Lordy. Just admit you made a mistake and move on. You're allowed make mistakes, Rob. Or do you think you're above that sort of thing?"

or either it's something you pick up right away through experience--experiences you pick up intuitively--or something that, after experience, you still need to spend time thinking about in order to understand.

I learn intuitively from my experiences. that is to say, when I have a new experience, I have a swift insight into its connections into the existing bodies of my knowledge--or immediate apprehension. the best way to put this in terms you will understand: I don't need to practice. I just get it.

it is a different style of learning. in my case, it's a style of learning which requires no expenditure of effort. many people have to learn through trial and error or by doing research in order to make sense of their experiences.

I am more than happy to admit when I have made a mistake. this is just not one of those times. I said exactly what I meant, and you are apparently unable to grasp that some people have minds which work differently than yours. (let me guess. math or science major?)

your confusion seems to stem from a few different things. I'll try to work through the conversation, since you're at a disadvantage, what with me being clever and you being significantly less so. I'll break it down into discrete steps for you. commentary in italics.

1. this started when someone said "you think too much about hipsters, Rob." pretty straightforward, but I think you may have missed this part, because your complaints make no sense in context.

2. I responded "that's the problem, I actually just have an intuitive understanding of this information." here is where you seem to be confused. at no point did I say how I gleaned this information, merely that it comes naturally to me. if I were an insufferable nerd, I would probably say that I grok hipsters or something, but I am not a nerd. this statement of mine reflects the fact that I don't need to spend a lot of time thinking about hipsters in order to write about hipsters at great length. the implication that you would have gotten if you were capable of reading is that I am, in fact, so intimately familiar with the subculture that it doesn't require thought. you also missed some really obvious nuance, which saddens me.

3. you then made the false dichotomy "intuition is no replacement for experience or knowledge," implying that intuition, experience, and knowledge are three mutually exclusive things, rather than experience and intuition being two tools that can both be used in order to gain knowledge that are not mutually exclusive. looking back at the context here, I can safely conclude that you're just a fucking moron who doesn't actually understand how humans gain understanding of the world around them. it's possible you're just throwing out a red herring in attempt to ignore the fact that my lengthy post on the hipster subculture is, in fact, spot on, and demonstrated that you or one of your fellow cuddlefish was being an ignorant fuck, but I'm not willing to attribute complicated thought patterns to cuddlefish.

hope that was helpful! I was actually expecting to find that you'd gotten lost in the thread of conversation. imagine my surprise to learn you're just an idiot!

Oh please, Waking Life is a plotless mass of New Age pseudoscience and discredited philosophical theories. It's like what you would get if you tried to work the awful What The Bleep Do We Know into a traditional plot structure but failed even at that. What was the relevance of the bedroom scene, of the guy with the megaphone, to anything having to do with the main character? As one reviewer stated, it's sort of like listening to a stoned college sophomore rambling off for 85 min about what he's picked up in his PHIL 101/102/201 classes. And one of the philosophical underpinnings of the movie is the notion that man is more or less equivalent to chimpanzees in terms of scientific and philosophical ability. They go on to say that the difference between the average man and chimpanzees is smaller than the difference between average man and great philosophers. Um, right, about that...

hahaha, "discredited philosophical theories." man, you really had me going for a minute.

my favorite part about the movie is reading the reviews of people who think the point is that the things the people are saying are somehow profound or interesting, and acting like there are actual philosophical underpinnings to the movie.

I'd just like to say that I am the guy who originally wrote that you think too much about hipsters. Had I known someone would spark up an argument about intuition or whatever, I wouldn't have written it.

I suppose I'd like to retract my statement and replace it with "You wrote far too much about hipsters." Because hipsters are rather boring. Just the like the argument that followed it.

Well, Rob, anything except for XKCD lately... I don't think we've gotten larger than a two-post discussion in the last few weeks related to an XKCD comic unless we were forced to tie in something else.

Your explanation for today's comic implies that all members of the "geek" subculture consists entirely of people who are fat, ugly or stupid. I consider myself a member of this group and I am none of the above. I am just socially retarded. Please stop spreading these hateful stereotypes.

So, seeing XKCD is only mentioned here and there in these comment threads, here's something to focus on, guys: the skull.

Before anything, the most recent xkcd is a clear display of... okayness. It's not BAD, but it's not GOOD. It's... okay. If it had anything to do with math, sarcasm, love or languange, I'd say this was a good sign of xkcd's back to goodness, but, alas, it is not. It's just a random topic Randall thought of in the last minutes of Sunday. But, to that skull.

At first, I did not even look at the most recent xkcd(I make an effort to not read it), but when the comments here mentioned the skull, with usual human features in it, I kid you not, I was afraid I'd have nightmares with this terrifying idea: that xkcd stick people have, indeed, only pale and featureless skin over their usual human features. They're all hideous faceless mutants who'll haunt you in your dreams forever.

Jokes apart, this is, once again, one of those "I don't think Randall thought this through very well" moments. And maybe this isn't an issue that's worthy of analyzing but, then again, isn't xkcd a comic meant for clever people? "But Mole," you might ask, "how is Randall going to make this comic with a featureless skull? It'll make no sense, a white ball being ripped off another white ball!" Why, yes, that is true. The answer is: he shouldn't make it. The idea doesn't fit the internal logic of xkcd's facelessness, and I bet Randall could think of many other better ideas for a comic in the past two days before the update. Maybe they'd even have anything to do with sarcasm, math, love and language! But, then again, that wouldn't be the Randall Munroe we all know and hate, right?

Ripping one's skull out buy using pore strips is just NOT POSSIBLE, guys. Once again, Randall has proven to us that he doesn't know shit about human biology. Okay MAYBE it's THEORETICALLY possible, like in a fancy mathematical model or something. But any med student or biology student, people who know the real stuff and not pretentious geeks like Randall, will tell you that it COULD NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPEN!

"Also, why would a suirrel talk? Funny jokes are jokes that somehow manage to reveal a hidden truth. But SQUIRRELS DON'T TALK, Randall! How stupid do you have to be not to know that??

And also, the drawing is really bad. You can't even see the mouth and nose and eyes of the character. Is it because Randall IS TOO FUCKING LAZY to draw real persons??!

Man, XKCD sucks worse and worse each day."

"Ripping one's skull out buy using pore strips is just NOT POSSIBLE, guys. Once again, Randall has proven to us that he doesn't know shit about human biology. Okay MAYBE it's THEORETICALLY possible, like in a fancy mathematical model or something. But any med student or biology student, people who know the real stuff and not pretentious geeks like Randall, will tell you that it COULD NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPEN!

So hey, sleep deprevation and hallucination. Has anyone actually experienced that? I've been awake for days on end before but I never hallucinated once. Is this just something that isn't actually real but is fashionable to say you have in nerd circles? Like asperger's?

I've heard of people staying awake for over a week and seeing weird things like walls walls looking like they're melting or surfaces covered in tiny bugs, but I've never heard of anyone actually having delusions (IE actually believing what they're seeing is real).

"So hey, sleep deprevation and hallucination. Has anyone actually experienced that? I've been awake for days on end before but I never hallucinated once. Is this just something that isn't actually real but is fashionable to say you have in nerd circles? Like asperger's? "

@Ann: The "My god" is pacing. I agree it's clunky, but I can't say what would fill the gap better. Dropping it would make it worse, and turn it into an XKCD comic basically -- except, you know, with a punchline, a daily colour update, and characters that, while we may not know anything about them outside of this circumstance nor will they ever appear again, we feel we can relate to even for a brief moment as living human beings.

Also better applications of Math, Romance, Language, and that other thing.

RE: the "scull" comic, I am with Mole on this one... the concept is pretty frightening of anthropomorphic features buried underneath a mass of white flesh.

Maybe he's actually looking for the sweet release of death; as the final panel appears, we smile in sympathy -- at last he is at peace, no longer burdened with an existence beyond the realms of human suffering.

@Ravenzomg: I reckon it would work better as a silent panel. Just the kid raising his glasses in realisation. There needs to be something between panel 2 and panel 4, and beat panels may be cliched but they're cliched for a reason, cos they work.

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha it is amazing what some idiots are willing to accept as art these days

though i will say it seemed like a few members of the audience were not buying into it a la the awesome guy yelling "encore encore yay art" and to their credit a lot of them looked suitably skeptical even if they all applauded like dillweeds at the end

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

Frequently Asked Questions

Divided into two convenient categories, based on whether you think this website

Rob's Rants

When he's not flipping a shit over prescriptivist and descriptivist uses of language, xkcdsucks' very own Rob likes writing long blocks of text about specific subjects. Here are some of his excellent refutations of common responses to this site. Think of them as a sort of in-depth FAQ, for people inclined to disagree with this site.